The Geoarchaeological Landscape of Wallace Tank Pueblo (AZ Q:1:199 (ASM)), Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona: Rehabilitating The Damaged Cultural Landscape Of A Pueblo IV Village

Abstract

Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) is a unique landscape of physical beauty and paleontological treasures. Known for its ancient fossils, petrified wood, and awe-inspiring vistas, it is also well-known in the archaeological community as having some of the earliest villages on the southern Colorado Plateau. Additionally, it is home to a few large late precontact pueblos (Pueblo IV period: ~1275-1400 CE) that were once part of an extensive regional network of communities where people and goods moved across the landscape. Wallace Tank Pueblo is the largest Pueblo IV period village within the Park. This once thriving 600-room pueblo was home to the ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi, and other descendant communities. Over time the physical features of the village were damaged by historic ranching activities and natural erosion. It is now a scoured and degraded landscape where the once sustaining natural spring is not even identifiable. Because of the uniqueness of this village within the Petrified Forest environment consultations between the Park and descendant communities should consider management plans that will re-establish a spring-fed wetlands. Such a plan would not only focus on preservation of the cultural features, but also on the health of the environment and that of the descendants who maintain an emotional and spiritual connection to this ancestral village.